I Know Who Did It (A Jack Nightingale Short Story) (3 page)

Nightingale
followed his example while Mercer put the top back on his Tupperware container
and stood up. He placed the container on the bench, then led Nightingale down
the path to the kitchen door. Mrs Mercer was watching a quiz show on television
and she looked up as her husband walked by with Nightingale. ‘I’m just taking Mr
Nightingale up into the attic,’ he said.

‘For heaven’s
sake, why?’

‘An old case,’ he
said.

‘Well don’t bring
any dust and dirt down with you,’ she said, and looked back at the TV.

The attic was
reached through a small trapdoor above the landing. Mercer used a pole with a
hook on the end to open the trapdoor and pull out an extendable ladder. It
rattled down and Mercer leaned the pole against the wall before slowly climbing
up. Nightingale waited until Mercer had disappeared through the trapdoor before
following him up.

Mercer flicked a
switch and a fluorescent light flickered on. The attic was windowless and lined
with plasterboard. There were cobwebs around the ceiling and dust everywhere.
There were several metal chests to the left of the trapdoor and against the
wall that marked the boundary with next door there were a dozen cardboard
boxes. ‘My police stuff is in there,’ said Mercer, nodding at the boxes. They
went over to them. They were all labelled with dates written in felt-tipped
pen. Mercer took a pair of spectacles from his shirt pocket and he put them on
and peered at the boxes. ‘There we are,’ he said, pointing at a box on the
floor. Nightingale moved the two boxes on top of it and Mercer opened it. It
was full of manila files and black notebooks. There was a sticker on each of
the notebooks, also with felt-tip writing, and Mercer went through them until
he found the one he was looking for. ‘Got it,’ he said, waving it in triumph.
He went over to stand underneath the fluorescent light and slowly flicked
through the pages. ‘The father kept calling me. Every week, regular as
clockwork. J Ramsay Campbell, his name was but he never told me what the J
stood for. Kept asking how the investigation was going. I suppose he’s been
dead for years.’

Nightingale shook
his head. ‘He died last week. Eighty-five.’

Mercer looked up
and grimaced. ‘I felt for him. My youngest had just been born. No parent wants
to bury his child. What about you? Kids?’

Nightingale shook
his head again. ‘No wife.’

‘Playing the
field?’

Nightingale
grinned. ‘I guess so.’

Mercer continued
to flick through the pages of his notebook. Then he stopped and frowned. ‘I’d
forgotten I did that.’

‘Did what?’

‘I made a drawing
of the thing on the floor. The magic circle thing.’ He held out the notepad.
The diagram filled one page. It was a circle with a five-pointed star inside,
similar to a regular pentagram. But in the spaces between the points of the
star were filled with strange symbols, the like of which Nightingale had never
seen.

‘Did you ever
work out what it is?’ asked Nightingale.

‘Some black magic
thing, obviously. We figured she’d made it up. Just squiggles.’ He frowned.
‘You think it’s significant?’

Nightingale
shrugged. ‘I’ve seen similar circles. But not as complex as this one.’

‘Well we got
nowhere. I did speak to someone at the British Museum but they weren’t much
help.’

Nightingale held
up the notebook. ‘Can I borrow this?’

Mercer looked
pained. ‘I’d rather not. I feel happier knowing that I have them, you know.’

‘Can I copy it,
then?’

‘I don’t see why
not but let’s do it outside, the dust isn’t good for my lungs.’

Nightingale went
down the ladder first. Mercer switched off the light and followed him down
before closing the trapdoor. This time Mrs Mercer didn’t look up as they walked
down the hallway to the kitchen but she shouted ‘I hope you didn’t bring down
any mess’.

‘We didn’t,’ said
Mercer as he led Nightingale through the kitchen. He grabbed a sheet of paper
and a pen from a drawer and took Nightingale into the garden. They sat on the
bench while Nightingale copied the drawing from Mercer’s notebook.

When he’d
finished he handed the notebook back to Mercer. ‘So who discovered the body?’

‘A member of the
cleaning staff found the door was locked from the inside and she called the headmaster.
Now what was his name?’ He flicked through the notepad. ‘Charles Nelson. He was
called and he broke down the door.’

‘So it was
locked?’

Mercer nodded.
‘From the inside. The key was in the lock.’

‘And the girl?’

Mercer grimaced.
‘She was lying on the floor. There was a cut in her left wrist. Deep. And a
knife on the floor.’ He shuddered. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got another cigarette,
have you? I smoked like a chimney back then and all this talking about it is
bringing back the craving.’

Nightingale took
out his cigarettes and lit two. ‘There must have been a lot of blood.’

‘Now that’s a cop
question.’

‘I was just
wondering if she died in the room or if the body was moved.’

‘The door was
locked from the inside. I told you that. But there wasn’t as much blood as
you’d have expected.’

‘Did you think it
was significant?’

‘I thought it was
but my boss didn’t. It was an old building and the floors were bare wood. He
said the blood had probably just drained through the floorboards. Possible, I
suppose.’

‘Was there a
note?’

Mercer shook his
head. ‘And no social media back then. We spoke to her friends and they said she
was worried about her exams.’

‘Do you think she
killed herself?’

‘You’re asking me
that after forty years?’ He sighed. ‘She didn’t seem the type to kill herself.’
And the blood thing worried me. But the headmaster was a Mason and so was my
Chief Superintendent so I think a secret handshake was done and I was told to
put it down as suicide and move on.’

‘What made you
think it might not be suicide?’

‘The whole magic
circle thing seemed out of character. She hadn’t expressed any interest in the
occult, the girls weren’t using Ouija boards or any nonsense like that. And who
goes to all that trouble, drawing something like that, before killing themselves?’

‘But the locked
door?’

Mercer smiled.
‘Yeah, the locked door. The key was on the inside, but that doesn’t mean that
the door was locked from the inside.’

‘I don’t follow.’

Mercer took a
long drag on his cigarette. The kitchen door opened and he put the cigarette
down guiltily. His wife appeared in the doorway. ‘Do you want tea?’ she called
over.

‘That would be
great, love, thanks!’ shouted Mercer. He looked at Nightingale. ‘How do you
take your tea?’

‘White, one
sugar.’

‘White with one
sugar for Jack!’ shouted Mercer. The kitchen door closed and Mercer resumed
smoking.

‘What did you
mean, the door didn’t have to be locked from the inside?’ asked Nightingale.

Mercer screwed up
his face. ‘I always thought Nelson was off.’

Nightingale took
out his phone and showed Mercer the photograph he’d taken at the school. Mercer
nodded. ‘That’s him. He just wasn’t right, you know. They call it a copper’s
sixth sense, but it’s more than that. I’d been a copper for ten years, three as
a DC, and I could tell when someone wasn’t right. He was upset, but it was like
he was pretending to be upset. It didn’t feel right. I knew at the time he was
off but I was just a DC and my DS was ten years older than me and our Chief
Super wore a funny apron and rolled up his trouser leg, so I just did as I was
told.’ He took a long drag on his cigarette and blew smoke before continuing.
‘We signed it off as a suicide and I didn’t give it much thought until a few
years later. I was watching some TV show, one of those detective things, can’t
remember which one. It was a locked room thing. Guy dead in a study, locked
from the inside. He’d stabbed himself is what it looked like. Turned out it was
the guy’s brother who’d done it. Stabbed him, put the knife in his hand and
then left, locking the door as he went.’

‘From the
outside?’

‘Sure. From the
outside. But he comes back later with the guy’s wife and knocks on the door.
The door’s locked, right? So he kicks down the door and they go into the room.
As the wife rushes over to the body, the brother slips the key into the lock.
So when the cops come, it looks as if the door had been locked from the inside.
That’s when I remembered the Emily Campbell case. Nelson was first through the
door, he could have put the key in the lock after he’d broken it down. But as I
said, that was years later. The horse had bolted, right?’ He took a long drag
on his cigarette, then leaned over, stubbed it out and buried it in the soil.

‘Any idea what
happened to Nelson?’

Mercer shook his
head. ‘It wasn’t a case to be followed up. What about you? Why are you so
interested?’

‘I’ve a client
who wants to know what happened.’

‘Family member?’

Nightingale
nodded. ‘The dead girl’s sister. She just wants answers. Closure.’

‘Forty years is a
long time.’

‘You’re telling
me.’

The kitchen door
opened. Nightingale followed Mercer’s example and buried what was left of his
cigarette in the soil before Mrs Mercer came over with their tea.

* * *

Nightingale got
back to the office with a couple of Starbuck coffees and two chocolate muffins.
‘Any joy?’ asked Jenny as he put a coffee and muffin down in front of her.

‘Thirty grand a
year for a boarding school, does that sound right?’

‘Education isn’t
cheap,’ said Jenny.

‘But thirty
grand,’ said Nightingale. ‘That’s serious money.’ He went through to his office
and dropped down on his chair. Jenny got up and followed him through.

‘The cop thinks
that she was killed,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m going to ask Robbie to check out
the headmaster. He might have been involved.’ He sipped his coffee and then
called Hoyle. Hoyle answered on the third ring. ‘Robbie, it’s Jack.’

‘Ask him about
Anna,’ mouthed Jenny.

‘How are Anna and
the girls, by the way?’ asked Nightingale.

‘What?’

‘Anna. And the
girls. Are they good?’

‘They’re great,’
said Hoyle. ‘Anna keeps asking when you’re coming around for dinner.’

‘This weekend
works,’ said Nightingale.

‘Why don’t you
bring Jenny?’

‘I’ll ask.’ He
put his hand over the receiver. ‘Robbie and Anna want you to come to dinner at
the weekend.’

Jenny grimaced.
‘I can’t, my parents have a shoot. Tell them I’d love to but sorry.’

Nightingale
nodded and put the phone back to his ear. ‘She’s shooting peasants this
weekend.’

‘I think you mean
pheasants,’ said Robbie.

‘Peasants,
pheasants. I think they’re pretty much interchangeable among the upper
classes.’

Jenny shook her
head contemptuously and walked out of his office.

‘So what do you
want, Jack?’

‘Another favour.’

Hoyle laughed. ‘I
took that for granted,’ he said. ‘What in particular do you need?’

‘I’m trying to
trace the headmaster of a boarding school from forty years ago. If I give you a
name and a photograph, do you think you could find him?’

‘Bloody hell,
Jack, you don’t ask much do you. Is it an unusual name?’

‘Not really.
Charles Nelson.’

‘There’ll be
hundreds with that name,’ said Hoyle. ‘Have you got a date of birth?’

‘Just the name
and a photograph. Can’t you run it through DVLC or the Passport office.’

‘Why the
interest?’

‘There was a case
forty years ago that was put down as suicide. I went to see that cop you told me
about – Mercer – and he said he thought this guy Nelson might have
killed her.’

‘Forty years ago?
That’s one hell of a cold case, Jack.’

‘I know, but can
you do it for me? I’d really like to talk to this Nelson if he’s still alive.’

‘Even if you find
him, what are you going to do? He must be seventy or eighty now, unless he
right out confesses I don’t see the CPS being interested.’

‘The client is
more interested in finding out what happened,’ said Nightingale. ‘Closure.’

Hoyle sighed.
‘I’ll see what I can do. But don’t expect miracles.’

* * *

Nightingale drove
to Camden in his MGB. It was a sunny day so he took the top down and let the
wind blow through his hair. He parked in a multi-storey
close to Camden Lock market and smoked a Marlboro as he walked to
the Wicca Woman shop. Mrs Steadman’s shop wasn’t easy to find unless you knew
what you were looking for, it was in a narrow side street wedged between a shop
selling exotic bongs and t-shirts promoting cannabis, and another that offered
hand-knitted sweaters.